SO SPECIAL, HIS STYLE... THE POET OF ARCHITECTURE IS HERE TO HELP
Hasan Fatehi

He plays well with space His life
On March 23rd, 1900 Hassan was born in Alexandria within rich family. When he became 18, he moved to Cairo in order to live with his family in Helwan district south Cairo, as his elder brother, late Mohammed Fathy, joined the School of Law and graduated to be one of the judicial corps representatives. As for his eldest brother, Dr. Ali Fathy, he graduated from the School of Engineering, pursuing his success he became the dean of faculty of engineering in Alexandria.

No special aspiration
Hassan, however, had no special aspiration but drawing. Being affected by farmers while visiting countryside, he was dreaming to be an agronomist . Unfortunately, he let that dream slip by simply because he did not manage to answer all questions leveled by the professor who was interviewing him. In the walk of this little failure, a desire to study mechanism clearly surfaced, but he retreated due to complicated math which was deemed to be prerequisite for such study.

 At the very end, he joined the School of Engineering to study architecture as a part of civil engineering till he graduated in 1926. Hassan Fathy, however, started his career as an engineer in school general department of local councils. The first work he launched was a school design in Talkha city, which was the first real and practical friction with countryside architecture that was, according to his description, not proper to be resided by human beings. That is why he gave a great concern to the countryside architecture or the architecture of the poor as he called it.

Natural aeration & dome-like constructions
Something appealing
The Nubian style, however, appealed to him to a great measure. At the very outset of his practical life, he was assigned to design a house of old people in a village located in Minia governorate; his director asked him to stick to the classic approach while mapping out such design. Hassan Fathy, however, did not like to work in such way, so he tendered his resignation in 1930 after 4 years straight of working in those local councils, returning back to Cairo where he met the Plastics Art School headmaster. Hassan offered to work with the French headmaster for free, as his ultimate goal was not to design classic architecture any more. The French headmaster welcomed such offer, saying, according to Fathy, "you are the man I was looking for". From that time on Hassan Fathy inaugurated his work as a teacher in the faculty of plastic arts in Zamalek, Cairo until 1946 when he had the chance to design buildings in his own village near to El Mansura city.

No more classics
As classic architecture was prevailed, at that time, in all Egyptian institutions and universities, Hassan did not manage to teach countryside architecture in the plastic arts school over the 16 years he spent over there. But he was offered the chance to set a gallery in both El Mansoura and El Fayoum cities.

Real start
It is worth mentioning that Selim Tekla Pasha, then owner of Al-Ahram newspaper, was fascinated with Hassan Fathy' s ideas and works, so he asked him to conduct a number of adjustments in his private town house. In 1946 Hassan was commissioned to tailor the architecture design of El Karna village located in the west bank of Luxor city to rehouse its indigenous people, as its houses were on the top of invaluable Pharaonic monuments. The government deemed it necessary to demolish the old village, with a view to enabling the antiquities council to unearth such great heritage.

Old & new but exclusive
This project lasted till 1953, penciling Fathy's real start of architectural accomplishment and his wide recognition. This project's theme, however, was published in detail by Fathy in English through US Chicago University press in 1973. It was previously issued by the Egyptian State Information Service (SIS) in Arabic in 1969.As of 1949 till 1952 Hassan was assigned to chair
the educational buildings department, Ministry of Education, then he returned back to faculty of plastic arts to preside architecture department as of 1953 till 1957.
Leaving home

Getting married in 1957, he left Egypt flying to Athens to join "Deksyades" association, leading a group to design the city of the future, until 1961 when he came back home. He left Egypt, according to his account, due to the red tape pursued on the part of the government and the complicated procedures that undermined his efforts to reach his dream in architecture realm. One could never ignore the correspondences submitted by Hassan Fathy to the officials, while identifying his character. When he left Egypt for Athens association in 1959, for two years, he conducted a number of scientific researches and planning surveys for several projects in both Iraq and Algeria.

Relation between Hassan Fathy and Deksyades, however, became so close. When Deksyades came to Egypt in 1961 to attend Arab city seminar - organized by one of the American cultural institutions - he was, at that time, seeking the establishment of an institution for rural surveys. This happened at the same time in which Egypt underwent a scientific movement looking forward to re-building the Egyptian village, for which conferences and seminars were held.
Re-building Egyptian village

Fathy, however, did not center himself away from scientific events which were pursuing in Egypt. He capitalized on each and every opportunity to contact officials of scientific research, education and land reclamation. He wrote to the national union chairman and the minister of central administration, reviewing his experiences related to establishing economical ceiling of rural housing and school buildings; calling for referring it to the military utilities department to be implemented. In 1960 Hassan Fathy wrote to the Secretary-General of the supreme council of science, clarifying study approach in Athens institution of technology for qualifying designers. As of 1963, he worked in several committees of the Ministry of Scientific Research, United Nations and Agkhahan Organization, in addition to his private office which was visualised by the architects as a Mecca of architecture art. In this period of his life, Hassan participated in several Arab and international conferences, lectured many Arab and Foreign universities and he became one of the most globally celebrated masters in environmental architecture sphere.

Nothing like the way he designs
Master of many things
Asked about mastering both English and French languages, Fathy answered "English was taught in school while French was sign of aristocratic family, "my father was a judge using French language and it was integral part of my surroundings". His character had, to a great extent, furthered his ideas and philosophies. This character could be obviously incarnated in his cultural, artistic and humanitarian personality; decent, articulate, knowledge-able, convincing and square are adjectives combined together to crystallize Hassan Fathy the human being.

Incurable romantic
Being fostered within aristocratic family, he was very thoughtful and chivalrous while receiving guests specially women. Romance prevailed his entire life, as he built a theater in El Karna village despite his full awareness that such action is unprecedented but he unleashed his imagination to build it. Some rural-style plays, however, were held under lights of fire in the presence of the elite of princes and princesses at that time, the matter which tanged the new village with romantic touch.